The Smell of Summer

With the rising temperatures, we are experiencing the smells of Afghanistan. We have quickly learned that the Afghan personal hygiene is not the same as ours. As it has gotten warmer out we have found that we can not stand as close to some of the Afghan contractors as we used to. It's become apparent that deodorant is not a big seller over here. I had another reminder this morning in the DFAC as I was reaching into the cooler for my milk carton. There was an Afghan employee restocking the cooler and I got more than I bargained for as I grabbed my milk. The smell was almost enough to ruin my breakfast.

The winner of the this contest happens to be one of my contractors and has earned him the nickname of "Stinky". It's almost bad enough that we know he's coming before he gets into our office. And, we keep air freshener close at hand around the office, to clear the air after he leaves. A few weeks ago a couple of us gave him a ride out to the gate to check on something. He rode in the back seat and we had all the windows open and both of us still felt like we needed to stick our heads out the windows as we were driving down the road. It can also be quite the ordeal when they want a picture with you and then they decide to put their arm around you for the picture.

Not all Afghani's adhere to this practice of no deodorant, but many do. I find it interesting that they go days without doing something about the smell, but they will wash their feet and hands before praying every time, which is 4 or 5 times a day. They do this so that they will be "clean" for the prayers.

Smelling of a different kind. The pictures below are of one of the dogs that we have on the base. There are several dogs in the military here, this dog is a bomb sniffing dog. We have the dog handlers bring the dogs out to sniff all of the gravel coming on base. It has to be dumped outside the main base in a controlled area and then sniffed by the dogs before it can be loaded onto trucks to come on the base. The contractor's have to plan ahead for delivery of the materials as it takes a little longer to get them on base.

Saw my first big (bigger) lizard yesterday. They can be hiding anywhere. This guy was in a stack of sand bags on one of the bunkers. We found him when one of the local national interpretors came running out into the road in a panic. He ran into the road and flagged us down. He had put his bathroom stuff on top of the bunker while he went into the port-a-john. When he came out and reached for his stuff, the lizard hissed at him and the interpretor took off towards the road thinking it was a snake. We had some fun with him after we found out it was a lizard and not a snake. In his defense, at first you could not see the lizard's leg like you can in the picture and all he saw was a long tongue flicking out of the sandbags and he could hear the hiss.